UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Book of the Month

July 2001

Shakespeare: First Folio

London: 1623

Sp Coll BD8-b.1

The July book of the month is Glasgow University's copy
of the First Folio edition of the collected plays of William
Shakespeare, published in 1623 some seven years after Shakespeare's death.

title-page

Only 18 of Shakespeare's plays appeared in print during
his lifetime, and some of these were in corrupt or pirated editions.
This collection contains 36 plays, 18 of which were here published for
the first time, thus saving such works as The Tempest and Macbeth
from probable extinction. Pericles, however, was excluded from this
edition, and first appeared in the third folio of 1664. The plays were
collected together by the actor editors John Heminge and Henry Condell.
Although the title-page boast of the plays being printed 'according to
the true originall copies' is undoubtedly a puffed up marketing device,
Heminge and Condell had in fact been members of Shakespeare's theatre
company: they presumably had access to playscripts and possibly worked
from some original manuscripts in producing their edition.

According to a census of surviving First Folios, Glasgow's copy
is Class
II B, being 'in fair condition, but with leaves missing, or supplied from
later Folios, or in facsimile'. Its preliminary (including the title-page with
the famous Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare, shown here) and final
leaves are indeed supplied from facsimiles. Examining the varying sizes
and differing quality of paper used in the main body of text also
suggests that this is a 'made up' copy, utilizing pages from at
least two if not several copies of the First Folio. Checking the signatures and other
printing peculiarities of this edition, however, confirms that all the pages do seem to be from First Folios and
have not, for example, been supplied from later editions. Making up entire
copies of the Folio from several different incomplete copies in this way
was a fairly
common practice in the eighteenth century. Many book dealers - most
famously, Thomas Roda- deliberately kept imperfect copies
in stock specifically to plunder for replacement pages for otherwise
imperfect volumes.

Although we do not know who owned our First Folio in the seventeenth
century, we can generalise about the sort of person who might have first
purchased it. Originally priced at £1, this book was something of a luxury
item, and it is in fact said that the English aristocracy owned most of
the copies for the first 200 years. Certainly, the book was in the hands
of the aristocracy by the eighteenth century. The volume still bears the
armorial bookplate of the fifth Earl of Inchiquin (afterwards Marquis of
Thomond) of Taplow Court, Buckinghamshire (1726-1808) who apparently
acquired the book c.1780. The name 'Inchiquin' is also inscribed across
the top of the opening of The Tempest. After this, we know that the book belonged to
a John Haes of Stockwell thanks to a note left by J. O. Halliwell (later
Halliwell-Phillipps), the bibliophile and prolific writer on
Shakespeare, who purchased the book from Haes through Mr
Adlard of Bartholomew Close on 22 August 1855. Halliwell-Phillipps sold
the book to William Euing the following year, and the letter which
accompanied it to Glasgow is still attached to the front flyleaf. In
this letter, Halliwell-Phillipps states that he had three copies
of the First Folio, of which this is his 'second best'; although the
price of the book is not stated, it is described as being in remarkably
fine condition generally for a 'low priced book'. The book was bequested
to Glasgow University by William Euing along with the rest of his library when he died in
1874.

front flyleaf

page
1: beginning of The Tempest

Halliwell-Phillipps described this copy as being 'neither ragged
nor rotten'. In fact, in common with most other surviving First
Folios, the book shows considerable signs of wear and use, and many of
its pages are stained and dirt engrained. However, evidence of heavy
use by previous owners can offer us historical insights into
earlier reading habits, and our copy is made particularly interesting for its annotations.
Although anonymous, the marginalia are of importance since
they suggest that the annotator actually saw the plays being acted
contemporaneously; and while many of Shakespeare's plays had been
first enacted some
twenty five years before the production of the First Folio, this may still be
regarded as a fairly immediate reaction to
the works of one of the greatest playwrights.

names of the principall actors

The comments accompanying the names of
the principal actors, for instance, would seem to suggest that
the annotator knew or at least had seen some of the actors. For
example, 'know' is written in by the name of Robert Benfield, 'by
eyewittnesse' by that of John Lowine, and 'by report' underneath
Richard Burbadge. The name of William Shakespeare, which heads
the list, is accompanied by the intriguing comment 'Leass for
making'*.

close up

pages 44-45: opening from The Merry Wives of Windsor

The significant annotations all appear in the first section of the
volume, comprising the 'comedies'. As has already been mentioned,
this volume would appear to have been made up and the pages are mixed
throughout this section: where the leaves are from the 'annotated'
copy, they are heavily and consistently marked, but they are
interspersed with leaves from another copy which are untouched. It is
exciting to consider
that of all the other Folios still in existence, some counterpart
'annotated' leaves may yet be found in a similarly made up copy. The most
obvious evidence of attentive reading is in the frequent underlining
throughout the annotated plays. Besides this, the notation 'ap' would
seem to be the reader's key marginal device, used to highlight sections of
particular interest; this is possibly an abbreviation of 'approbo' (I
approve).

page 60: ending of The Merry Wives of Windsor

The reader
occasionally adds comments to the text as well, showing us his appreciation (or
otherwise) of the plays. Unfortunately, the pages of the text were cropped in an
eighteenth century rebinding of the volume, making many of these
marginal annotations difficult to decipher. However, the comments
given at the end of each play have not been affected. Thus, we learn
that our early reader summed up The Two Gentlemen of Verona as being
'starke naught'. On the other hand, The Tempest is liked 'pretty well', and The Merry Wives of
Windsor is lauded as 'very good; light'.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is particularly well
annotated.This comment accurately sums up Ford's mistrust for his wife as
being 'a good jealous mans dilemma'.

page 45: close-up of annotation

page 38: end of The Two
Gentlemen of Verona

Such a large volume was a massive publishing venture and undoubtedly
expensive to produce. It is speculated that the edition may have run
to about 500 copies, probably produced by using two presses
simultaneously. Corrections were made throughout the printing
process - as a consequence, it is said that no two copies are
alike. Certainly, the book is riddled with typographical errors.
Shown here, for example, is the page ending The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, wrongly bearing the headline for The Merry Wives of
Windsor which begins on the page following. However, while the
Shakespeare First Folio might not be an outstanding example of
seventeenth century printing, its cultural and literary significance
is undisputed, and it remains one of the most important and
sought after books produced in England since printing began.

*update: September 2004
Professor Jonathan Bate of the University of Warwick suggests that this
annotation actually reads as 'Least for making' (or possibly 'Ceast for
making'). In other words, the comment could imply that Shakespeare did
the 'least' acting of anyone in the company because his main job was
writing ('making') the plays.